Nonsense. TV doesn't work that way. There's been no censorship or blocking. The interview can be readily seen on the Internet, for one.

Perhaps whatever cable TV station -- or even network TV station -- that might have considered this wouldn't have wanted to pay the huge fee no doubt involved.

Or it's just not the kind of programming that can be used. American TV, unlike European or Russian TV, doesn't tend to have long interviews like this with just one person talking for 30 or 60 minutes, and not even a commercial break.

Even alternative TV that might possibly use something like this would more likely report *about* it rather than just run it "as is" because it's just boring, self-absorbed non-news. It's Snowden basically re-hashing the manifesto he's already given in his Christmas message and in his long video interview with Bart Gellman already covered. We already had lots of Snowden in recent weeks, and more of that faux-deep voice and the narcissistic nonchalance and arrogant over-confidence is just too much more to take.

I had to make several goes at this myself and get past the annoyance of all this megalomania in order to sift out such news as there actually is in this thing.

And now, because I've suffered doing this, you don't have to -- so hit my tip jar. Thank you.

Basically, the "new news" I see here in the scope of the Edward Snowden Narrative as it has evolved since June 9th when his first video was published is that Snowden is bending over backwards to shift the responsibility for the worst, most damaging document publications or claims about documents to the journalists.

This is odd, given everything, and given that he talks to his adversarial journos "daily," but not inconsistent with what he has said from the get-go -- that he was unlike Chelsea Manning, who just dumped a lot of files sullenly and didn't wait to get professional journalists involved. Manning worked through Assange, who tended in fact *not* to redact all names of identifying characteristics -- getting lots of people in trouble -- and who followed a revolutionary scheme for picking out the cables that he felt stuck it the worst to the US.

Snowden said he'd be different. He'd leave the interpretation and vetting and selection to journalists themselves. That would be "better."

Of course, day after day, in his "daily" conversations (as we're told) he must be heavily involved in interpreting and selecting documents. I mean, what else would he be talking about, Russian blini?

One of the reasons this show is so difficult to stomach is that the German journalist interviewing him is totally smitten, totally uncritical, and fields him totally softball questions. If he ever asks anything that actually might yield more information, he lets Snowden cut off the answer abruptly and never pursues it further. Fluff all the way down.

A Fake "Significant Threat"

First, the German clucks and sympathizes over the Buzzfeed story from a reporter who somehow got a few NSA officers into a bar and got them to utter their aggressive feelings about Snowden, i.e. they wanted to shoot him or hunt him down.

This report was completely bogus in every way. It doesn't represent any official policy. I don't know how this journalist set this up, or why these officers were stupid enough to rant about Snowden, but he was able to do a "gotcha" on them.

It occurred to me, in fact, that it might have been a set-up, some kind of "op" on the part of NSA. That it was part of some "psy-war" whereby they are letting him know that there are a lot of angry agents out there (supposedly) and that he had better come back willingly through normal channels or he can expect to be hunted down.

I'm skeptical that this is the case, however; I think it's just opportunistic journalists and men mouthing off while drunk or something.

Snowden blows it up and takes a victim star term and intones that it is a "significant threat". Nonsense. A "significant threat" is if an actual person in authority said something, like they do in Turkmenistan or Russia. This is just a couple of dudes in a bar.

Snowden said he had to get more police protection. Huh? Here's a man already being guarded by the FSB, the SVR, the GRU and probably 10 other agencies (the traffic police). The idea that this incredibly sensitive "whistleblower" who is really a defector would have to have "more police protection" is absurd. He's already guarded out the wazoo.

Notice that once again, he appears in this mansion with the faux paintings and the salmon walls. Either he is brought to this residence for meetings like this, or he lives there (I'm guessing the former, as they wouldn't want even friendly journalists to figure out where he lived.)

Typical of the "privacy for me and not for thee" ideology of the hackers, Snowden whines about these NSA officials, "They gave them anonymity to be able to say what they want."

He intones again -- these are "acting government officials" who would "love to put a bullet in my head." And then implies that it would be fine to harass these men who spouted something privately, and out them, and punish them.

Of course making this kind of statement is unprofessional, but then, Snowden has committed an outrageous crime against our national security, is charged with three felonies, has caused untold damage, and has to expect some people in the NSA are going to be a little ticked off. To me, the journalist who had the poor judgement to make a story out of a couple guys spouting in a bar is the real problem here, ultimately.

Obama Softens, Ed Gloats

Snowden claims that first there was a "circling of wagons of government around NSA" instead of "protecting the public," and claims "the political class circled around the security state."

This is pure, dumb Internet ideology. It's the kind of low-grade bullshit that losers like him brought up on the Internet ingest and spit out. They imagine there is this conspiracy -- this "political class" which they, even with their $200,000 salaries working for the CIA and NSA (!) aren't part of. They imagine that this class doesn't do their job honestly, but is only protecting of "the security state" -- itself a concept out of science fiction and Russian propaganda. It's so immature and witless.

Worse, Snowden thinks that now he has gamed this whole thing out, and thrown the president. That's among the more disgusting features of his op -- this culture jamming and noise about how he is maneuvering the government to do this or that, and all is going according to plan.

"Since then, we've seen softening from the president," Deep Voiced Ed tells us, and now Obama admits that there are ""thousands of violations." Except...there isn't any proof of this, least of all from Snowden.

He then goes on to talk about how the president has realized we shouldn't "preserve authorities than we don't need." Oh? A thief and a felon and a fugitive is the judge of what authorities are needed or not? And Obama's judgement may not be good here.

Next, Snowden gloats, that even why Obama packed his commission with personal friends, insiders, former deputy of CIA --- people who had every incentive to just go soft on the NSA, instead "they found these programs have no value and " they've never stopped a terrorist attack," and they" have marginal utility."

All of these notions are hugely troubling. For one, these findings haven't really ever been made. The 100-page report from Obama's crony commission doesn't so much make real findings as it re-states the premise the media has already pre-cooked. It's not true these programs have no value. Certain people in that "political class" may have come to believe this, but we don't have solid proof. Congress has not held substantive hearings on this. The courts have ultimately not spoken and resolved the constitutional matters raised. The article on Colombia alone lets us know that the NSA has been useful; articles revealing that Snowden may have exposed intelligence work in Pakistan let us know just how much damage could be done. Claiming these programs don't work and aren't needed is a whole form of damage all its own.

Snowden said that Section 215's permission for bulk collection -- which he claims means "mass surveillance" so far has only turned up "an $8500 wire transfer from a cab driver in California." Well, if that was going to involve attacking our troops or agents abroad and killing them, the program was worth it. And as it happens, there is the Muhtorov case, on just this point. Perhaps his lawyers will succeed in their gambit to nationalize this case and turn it into a referendum on the NSA's program instead of a trial about aiding and abetting terrorist groups abroad. We'll see. In any event, Snowden doesn't seem to even know about the Muhtorov case, although I suppose before long, the fact that Joshua Foust has picked it up (and in blog after blog smeared me in the process) and that the ACLU has it now with Jameel Jaffer's crusading litigation once again, then it won't be long before Ben Wizner or somebody else plants the idea in Snowden's head and he begins spouting about this, too. Perhaps he'll even claim to have documents about it. Watch this space.

Curiously, Snowden says that the "president can end or modify" these 215 programs at any time. I'd like a second opinion on that. And if that's the case and Obama does this, I would find it hugely scary, and evidence yet again that he is trying to break up the state. You may find that an extreme statement. Then you explain why it is being done.

Snowden then falsely compares the old days, when agents would get a warrant to what he claims is their unlawful vacuuming up of data today.

And here is a statement that is key to his whole tendentious and deliberately manipulative ideology:

"They want to apply the totality of their powers in advance prior to the investigation"

Well, no they don't. The NSA is not the Pre-Crime Unit. They dredge data and save it and then tap it when they have suspects. Snowden has always, all through this saga, tried to pretend that capacity is the same thing as action, that hypotheticals are the same thing as action, that "just because we can" means "we do." Over and over again, officials and more responsible journalists have explained that no, it's not the case.

The German journalist asked him what his "breaking point" was, and what made him decide to "whistleblow," i.e. hack. As @Kat_Missouri reminds us, Snowden had an elaborate part to his "legend" that had him waiting for Obama to "do the right thing" after his election. Snowden held off on his leaks, he said, because he thought the new president might bring Hope and Change. Then he didn't, to this young fugitive's satisfaction.

As @Kat_Missouri points out, TheTrueHOOHAH, as Ed called himself online, only waited a grand total of 4 weeks for Obama to make reforms, and when he didn't, then, she believes, he started copying files to leak. I don't know if this is true, but I simply mention that here. BTW, even if people behave badly, if they've put up interesting research, I will give credit where it is due.

"Clapper Lied"

But now, in the ARD interview, Snowden dropped that hoo-hah (you know, etymologically, that American slang word grew out of the Russian/Slavic word "khui" which means "prick" -- actually, it's probably a Tatar word). Now Snowden says that his turning point was "when Clapper lied, directly under oath to Congress."

Oh, nonsense. Clapper didn't lie. Wyden goaded him, and he made a statement as truthful as he knew in the circumstances, and in fact the essence of it was this: no, the government doesn't keep separate, full dossiers on people. It only keeps them on lawful suspects. In fact, in recent days, we've heard that the NSA program only gets 30% of all phone calls metadata -- which is not content in any event. So much for Ed's claims...

And here's an interesting thing that really everyone should be reporting, and throwing back in Snowden's face and Greenwald and co's face.

"There's no saving an intelligence community that believes it can lie." There is "no going back," he says.

Now that's disconcerting. Before, Ed made it seem like he was for reform. That he was gleeful over the formation of Obama's crony commission, and that while not perfect, it was moving in the direction Snowden approved (yes, I realize it's loathsome to describe this petulant man-child as approving or disapproving matters of state, but there it is, that's what it has come to.)

But wait. Now he says there's no hope for the IC. It can't change. There's no "going back." Therefore it must be...what...removed? Blown up? Maybe it's the NSA that needs some extra police protection now, not Snowden. I found that very awful. It means that his fig leaf of "reform" is really slipping, and we're seeing more what this is about: blackmail and coercion.

Snowden then lies that the American people are "prohibited from knowing and discussing" the NSA program and the FISA court cases. He calls FISA "a rubber stamp." But you know, a secret court regarding sensitive terrorist and criminal cases has to be kept secret. And so far we've seen that if a lawyer disagrees, he can challenge that, and maybe it will stick, but ultimately, I don't hear Snowden's plan for chasing the bad guys.

He's also once again performed this sleight of hand, making it seem like things that in fact were never found unlawful or illegitimate by Congress or the courts are suspect -- just because he, a wanted felon, says so. It's perversion.

Now Snowden switches to more of his familiar megalomania territory. Once again, we are seated with Ed at his desk at the NSA as he bugs the president.

"You realize the power you have," he says. "You can wiretap the president of the US" "You can wiretap a federal judge" and "No one will ever know."

Really, guys? Some dude in the Hawaii station can click through some menus and tap Obama's Blackberry? Truly? I'm finding that hard to believe.

Then Ed says, "The only way NSA discovers abuses is from self-reporting." Again, I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that. At all. There are systems that show files were tampered with -- and hey, that's why Ed went on the lam, and why he seemed to have speeded up his leaks and his outing.

Edward Snowden's Big Lie

The German probes some more on the "five eyes" programs where he thinks he has discovered this wonderful flaw in the system whereby the countries barred from spying on their own citizens can just get the other guy to do the spying. Except, there are checks and bars, and it's not just "anybody," but again -- legitimate suspects.

And here's where Snowden pronounces his Big Lie: "the surveillance and abuse doesn't occur when people look at the data, it occurs when they gather the data."

That is what we must challenge at root. Because it's not true. Abuse doesn't occur from gathering -- especially when human eyes don't see (you know, like Ed's own human eyes couldn't see every page in his 1.7 million files? You know, like that.) Abuse comes IF there is an innocent person's privacy violated wilfully, with human intelligence and will. Ed has never come up with a case like that. So he backdates it with this geeky theory of "capacity=action".

This is where Congress should be fighting back. I fear it won't, because they won't understand how meaning is being perverted here by this geek.

Once again, Snowden falsely declares that the NSA "doesn't answer to the laws of its own country" -- although this has not been found substantively by any body. Snowden defines spying itself as "collection of data" when discussing 5 eyes -- but it would be more accurate to say that collection of data is done as a mechanical aid to spying.

Snowden makes preposterous claims -- "you can read anyone's email in the world, watch traffic to any website" or gain access to any any laptop through the "one-stop shop for access for the NSA" called XKeyScore, the "the front-end engine that enables them to look at everything they collect." Except it doesn't do that. They don't look at "everything"; they look at the cases they are following.

Snowden implies that all sorts of inherently privacy-busting garbage goes into this program -- individuals are "tagged" merely if they are "interesting" or "have access" to networks the NSA needs to trawl.

He believes this system "builds a fingerprint, network activity unique to you," and "anywhere you go, the NSA can find you"

Snowden Shifts the Burden of Possible Prosecution for Espionage to Journalists

Now pay attention to this section carefully, because this is where Snowden does something...odd.

He tells the ARD man that Germany has access to X Key Score. Naturally, the German asks:

Does the BND deliver data of the Germans to NSA?

The old Snowden would have said "Yes, they collect 'em all, they get everything, be afraid."

The new more cautious, and more lawyered-up, and more...somethinged...Snowden says this:

Whether the BND does this directly or knowingly, the NSA gets German data. Whether it's reported, I can't speak to, because it's classified, and I prefer journalists make distinctions and decision about what is public and what should be published.

"However, it's no secret than every country of the world has the data of their citizens in the NSA." There are millions and millions of data connections, he says, people talking on their cell phones and buying things on line, all of this ends up at the NSA.

"It is reasonable to suspect that the BND may be aware of it in some capacity but whether the BND provides this information I should not say," says Snowden.

Should not.

When was the last time you heard this talkative loud-mouth ever curb himself, and speak of things he "should not" say? When? It just hasn't happened before. He's never self-censored. He's never let you know he was holding back. What's up?

Snowden says he prefers journalists to determine what is in the public interest, whether the NSA filters or ingests or hacks a German router, whether

"What they don't mean is they aren't gathering data, what they mean is that they aren't intentionally searching," he says, reiterating his Big Lie.

"I don't want to pre-empt the editorial decisions of journalists but there's no question that the US is engaged in economic spying."

Really? This truly is a lot of emphasis from Snowden on the role of journalists - as distinct from his own role as source.

Is he trying to imply that really spilling the beans -- deciding to say that Germany provides info to the NSA, or the NSA hacks Germany, is in fact something he won't say, but that journalists have to say?

Is he trying to set up these journalists? Is he trying to plea-bargain? Is he angling for a deal, and implying that he really didn't do the worst -- Jacob Appelbaum did?

Then he reiterates this other hugely misleading claim that the US is "like" China in engaging in industrial espionage - and mentions Siemens. There is "no question" the US is engaged in "economic spying" and can't tell national interest versus national security.

Well, gosh. If Siemens didn't prop up the Soviet Union, and then later collude with regimes like Turkmenistan, maybe the US wouldn't have to spy on it, yanno?

Snowden then approvingly quotes Obama: ""just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should" and them mentions Merkel's phone:

This is a particularly difficult question for me to answer because there's information that *I* very strongly is in the public interest, however as I've said before, I prefer *journalists* to make those decisions.

Yes, he's said this in a general sort of way a few times before -- at the beginning. But now? So specifically? When the story out now just recently is that in fact, this "spying on Merkel's phone" was more about spying on Schroeder, and then continuing by default.

Why is Snowden bending over backwards on Germany, on this question, re: the journalists who have reported on Germany? That's not Greenwald. That's Jacob Appelbaum -- and Holger Stark and other Der Spiegel journalists. He's putting them on the hook now.

He said that journalists would have to weigh the "reputational costs" to outing the officials who made these decisions.

Wow. Really?

"We know Merkel was monitored," Snowden finally tells the ARD journo with a wink. "It's reasonable to assume she's not the only one."

As for "how he did it," here's something I can agree with Snowden on -- the contracting world. It "highlights the danger of privatizing government functions," he intones. I'll say!

In a kind of advertorial against himself, he complains that "private, for-profit companies doing inherently govenrment work like surveillance" are a bad thing and that they have "very little supervision." Indeed!

At one point, the jolly German tries to get Snowden to lighten up, to talk about himself more personally -- to give some sort of personal details. He joshes that surely Snowden was like one of those nerdy kids whose parents told him to get off the computer and go to bed.

Like a robot -- all throughout this interview you feel he is acting, watching himself, smiling on cue, making deep intonations on cue -- now he says mechanically, "Yes, parents telling me to go to bed is consistent with the truth."

The German asks him why he joined the army. Did he have some beliefs?

Snowden said he wanted to join the special forces because they aren't just grunts shooting people, but help local population to resist themselves by training them. Sort of more refined warfare for the smart set.

But then he says he broke my legs -- and that's it, no more story. No explanation of *how*. No explanation of why he didn't remain.

Snowden then admits because he didn't graduate from high school or college, he had a "deep informal education in computers and electronic technology."

What made you join the CIA?" asks the German reporter.

"I can't answer that one," says Snowden.

Again -- awfully odd, eh? He can't answer that? Really? He's NEVER said that before.

When pressed, he says he was "Trying to do everything I could to prosecute the public good"

Well, says the journalist. They're not exactly a human rights activists at the CIA.

"No matter how deeply embedded, no matter how faithful, no matter how strongly they believe in the causes of their government as I did in the Iraq war, people can learn, people can discover the line between appropriate government behaviour and actual wrong," says Snowden in justification.

He deplores "contracting culture" and he believes while the purpose is limiting government employees, in reality, it's keeping the contracting businesses in business. There are millions taken, "and the government didn't even know they were gone," says Snowden. I'd tend to agree. The contracting world produces people like Joshua Foust and Nathan Hamm. They behave terribly to others and don't seem to have any notion of decency. That's because along the way, they are feted and overpaid and underdeployed -- and a lot of other things. The culture is awful.

Snowden then returned to his false claim that he has done no damage.

Here he deliberately obfuscates, and selectively quotes one official who is merely reporting the facts of the moment, not some final word on the case:

The chief of the task force investigating me as recently as December said that their investigation had turned up no evidence of indications at all that I had any outside help or contact or made a deal of any kind.

"I worked along...I don't have any ties to foreign governments," says Snowden.

I don't believe him, really. Certainly not the "worked alone" part -- but maybe the theory of Team Snowden now is to deny and obfuscate and shift and distract?

"Who did I betray?" says Snowden, starting in on his outrageous, self-serving "l'etat, c'est moi" nonsense. "I gave all my information to the American public, to American journalists who are reporting on American issues." This is the "I defected to the American people" nonsense that I wish Jay Carney would sound off on every day.

Jay is often good on the Russians in particular, and he was quite good on Snowden. Remember when he spoke acidly about people who defend human rights from the lounge of the Sheremetyevo Airport? If Obama were sincere about catching Snowden (he's not), he would sound off daily answering all this preposterous propaganda. Then it might sway less people. But the White House is silent. They never rebut Snowden. No one ever does...

"If they see that as treason, they really need to consider who do they think they are working for. The public is supposed to be their boss, not their enemy."

Um, okay. Well, yes, the public is the boss of public officials. You know, like Edward Snowden. And I, for one, say this public official was way out of line and should be returned by the Russians and tried for his offenses.

Interestingly, Snowden speaks a little on the "sovereign Internet" that is of course is Putin's dream, using him.

But "no walled gardens," says Snowden -- the usual geek credo. "Let's not play 'move the data' which won't fix the problem," he says. "Let's secure it internationally against everyone."

This is really only another version of Russian sovereign Internet -- actually a worse thing because in utopian fashion, it implies that "international authorities," i.e. including Russia, China, Iran can "secure everyone's data." Of course they can't.

As the genius explains -- and hey, Google engineers take note! -- moving data isn't the issue, securing it is the issue. Gosh, glad we got that one sorted out.

"These leaks didn't cause harm."

This, is of course, Snowden's recurring refrain, but fortunately we now have Edward Lucas' book and others will appear outlining the damage done to spying capacity and relations with allies.

"The public agrees it served the public interest," claims Snowden. But that's not true. That is not what polls say. Polls say even young people disagree 42-42 about whether to prosecute him. The public interest faction may be just over the majority, like 56%, but so what? The rest don't believe that. It's like the plurality that Obama himself has. But the reality is, half the country didn't vote for him.

Then we hear from Mr. Nuremberg Principles -- "what is lawful is distinct from what is rightful."

He is charged with 3 felonies, as the journalist even reminds him. But Snowden complains these crimes "don't allow me to make my case" and "convince the jury that what I did was to their benefit.

This is the theme that Electronic Frontier Foundation, @emptywheel, ACLU and others have been hammering on for weeks, Snowden claims he can't return and have a fair trial because in the past, under existing jurisprudence, those tried with espionage were unable to use their trials to bring evidence to exonerate themselves as whistleblowers. I'd like a second opinion on this, but I think basically it's a red herring. Snowden just doesn't want to face jail time without the Internet. The one thing we learn from Luke Harding's book about his greatest fear is that he was worried in Hong Kong the Chinese might arrest him and put him in a box without the Internet.

Snowden complains about the Espionage Act of 1918, implying that it's old date of nearly 100 years ago makes it outdated because of new technology and such.

Actually, the Espionage Act put in place after the Russian Revolution to deter Bolshevik espionage intrigues would be exactly timely today because what we're dealing with in the hackers movement is just like Bolshevism, and arguably more pervasive.

"It was for selling documents in secret to foreign governments," Snowden says about the 1918 Act -- "not people serving public good."

Except, it hasn't been proven satisfactorally that Snowden *has* served the public good. That is not demonstrable, and the evidence of his harm is mounting.

Nonsense. TV doesn't work that way. There's been no censorship or blocking. The interview can be readily seen on the Internet, for one.

Perhaps whatever cable TV station -- or even network TV station -- that might have considered this wouldn't have wanted to pay the huge fee no doubt involved.

Or it's just not the kind of programming that can be used. American TV, unlike European or Russian TV, doesn't tend to have long interviews like this with just one person talking for 30 or 60 minutes, and not even a commercial break.

Even alternative TV that might possibly use something like this would more likely report *about* it rather than just run it "as is" because it's just boring, self-absorbed non-news. It's Snowden basically re-hashing the manifesto he's already given in his Christmas message and in his long video interview with Bart Gellman already covered. We already had lots of Snowden in recent weeks, and more of that faux-deep voice and the narcissistic nonchalance and arrogant over-confidence is just too much more to take.

I had to make several goes at this myself and get past the annoyance of all this megalomania in order to sift out such news as there actually is in this thing.

And now, because I've suffered doing this, you don't have to -- so hit my tip jar. Thank you.

Basically, the "new news" I see here in the scope of the Edward Snowden Narrative as it has evolved since June 9th when his first video was published is that Snowden is bending over backwards to shift the responsibility for the worst, most damaging document publications or claims about documents to the journalists.

This is odd, given everything, and given that he talks to his adversarial journos "daily," but not inconsistent with what he has said from the get-go -- that he was unlike Chelsea Manning, who just dumped a lot of files sullenly and didn't wait to get professional journalists involved. Manning worked through Assange, who tended in fact *not* to redact all names of identifying characteristics -- getting lots of people in trouble -- and who followed a revolutionary scheme for picking out the cables that he felt stuck it the worst to the US.

Snowden said he'd be different. He'd leave the interpretation and vetting and selection to journalists themselves. That would be "better."

Of course, day after day, in his "daily" conversations (as we're told) he must be heavily involved in interpreting and selecting documents. I mean, what else would he be talking about, Russian blini?

One of the reasons this show is so difficult to stomach is that the German journalist interviewing him is totally smitten, totally uncritical, and fields him totally softball questions. If he ever asks anything that actually might yield more information, he lets Snowden cut off the answer abruptly and never pursues it further. Fluff all the way down.

A Fake "Significant Threat"

First, the German clucks and sympathizes over the Buzzfeed story from a reporter who somehow got a few NSA officers into a bar and got them to utter their aggressive feelings about Snowden, i.e. they wanted to shoot him or hunt him down.

This report was completely bogus in every way. It doesn't represent any official policy. I don't know how this journalist set this up, or why these officers were stupid enough to rant about Snowden, but he was able to do a "gotcha" on them.

It occurred to me, in fact, that it might have been a set-up, some kind of "op" on the part of NSA. That it was part of some "psy-war" whereby they are letting him know that there are a lot of angry agents out there (supposedly) and that he had better come back willingly through normal channels or he can expect to be hunted down.

I'm skeptical that this is the case, however; I think it's just opportunistic journalists and men mouthing off while drunk or something.

Snowden blows it up and takes a victim star term and intones that it is a "significant threat". Nonsense. A "significant threat" is if an actual person in authority said something, like they do in Turkmenistan or Russia. This is just a couple of dudes in a bar.

Snowden said he had to get more police protection. Huh? Here's a man already being guarded by the FSB, the SVR, the GRU and probably 10 other agencies (the traffic police). The idea that this incredibly sensitive "whistleblower" who is really a defector would have to have "more police protection" is absurd. He's already guarded out the wazoo.

Notice that once again, he appears in this mansion with the faux paintings and the salmon walls. Either he is brought to this residence for meetings like this, or he lives there (I'm guessing the former, as they wouldn't want even friendly journalists to figure out where he lived.)

Typical of the "privacy for me and not for thee" ideology of the hackers, Snowden whines about these NSA officials, "They gave them anonymity to be able to say what they want."

He intones again -- these are "acting government officials" who would "love to put a bullet in my head." And then implies that it would be fine to harass these men who spouted something privately, and out them, and punish them.

Of course making this kind of statement is unprofessional, but then, Snowden has committed an outrageous crime against our national security, is charged with three felonies, has caused untold damage, and has to expect some people in the NSA are going to be a little ticked off. To me, the journalist who had the poor judgement to make a story out of a couple guys spouting in a bar is the real problem here, ultimately.

Obama Softens, Ed Gloats

Snowden claims that first there was a "circling of wagons of government around NSA" instead of "protecting the public," and claims "the political class circled around the security state."

This is pure, dumb Internet ideology. It's the kind of low-grade bullshit that losers like him brought up on the Internet ingest and spit out. They imagine there is this conspiracy -- this "political class" which they, even with their $200,000 salaries working for the CIA and NSA (!) aren't part of. They imagine that this class doesn't do their job honestly, but is only protecting of "the security state" -- itself a concept out of science fiction and Russian propaganda. It's so immature and witless.

Worse, Snowden thinks that now he has gamed this whole thing out, and thrown the president. That's among the more disgusting features of his op -- this culture jamming and noise about how he is maneuvering the government to do this or that, and all is going according to plan.

"Since then, we've seen softening from the president," Deep Voiced Ed tells us, and now Obama admits that there are ""thousands of violations." Except...there isn't any proof of this, least of all from Snowden.

He then goes on to talk about how the president has realized we shouldn't "preserve authorities than we don't need." Oh? A thief and a felon and a fugitive is the judge of what authorities are needed or not? And Obama's judgement may not be good here.

Next, Snowden gloats, that even why Obama packed his commission with personal friends, insiders, former deputy of CIA --- people who had every incentive to just go soft on the NSA, instead "they found these programs have no value and " they've never stopped a terrorist attack," and they" have marginal utility."

All of these notions are hugely troubling. For one, these findings haven't really ever been made. The 100-page report from Obama's crony commission doesn't so much make real findings as it re-states the premise the media has already pre-cooked. It's not true these programs have no value. Certain people in that "political class" may have come to believe this, but we don't have solid proof. Congress has not held substantive hearings on this. The courts have ultimately not spoken and resolved the constitutional matters raised. The article on Colombia alone lets us know that the NSA has been useful; articles revealing that Snowden may have exposed intelligence work in Pakistan let us know just how much damage could be done. Claiming these programs don't work and aren't needed is a whole form of damage all its own.

Snowden said that Section 215's permission for bulk collection -- which he claims means "mass surveillance" so far has only turned up "an $8500 wire transfer from a cab driver in California." Well, if that was going to involve attacking our troops or agents abroad and killing them, the program was worth it. And as it happens, there is the Muhtorov case, on just this point. Perhaps his lawyers will succeed in their gambit to nationalize this case and turn it into a referendum on the NSA's program instead of a trial about aiding and abetting terrorist groups abroad. We'll see. In any event, Snowden doesn't seem to even know about the Muhtorov case, although I suppose before long, the fact that Joshua Foust has picked it up (and in blog after blog smeared me in the process) and that the ACLU has it now with Jameel Jaffer's crusading litigation once again, then it won't be long before Ben Wizner or somebody else plants the idea in Snowden's head and he begins spouting about this, too. Perhaps he'll even claim to have documents about it. Watch this space.

Curiously, Snowden says that the "president can end or modify" these 215 programs at any time. I'd like a second opinion on that. And if that's the case and Obama does this, I would find it hugely scary, and evidence yet again that he is trying to break up the state. You may find that an extreme statement. Then you explain why it is being done.

Snowden then falsely compares the old days, when agents would get a warrant to what he claims is their unlawful vacuuming up of data today.

And here is a statement that is key to his whole tendentious and deliberately manipulative ideology:

"They want to apply the totality of their powers in advance prior to the investigation"

Well, no they don't. The NSA is not the Pre-Crime Unit. They dredge data and save it and then tap it when they have suspects. Snowden has always, all through this saga, tried to pretend that capacity is the same thing as action, that hypotheticals are the same thing as action, that "just because we can" means "we do." Over and over again, officials and more responsible journalists have explained that no, it's not the case.

The German journalist asked him what his "breaking point" was, and what made him decide to "whistleblow," i.e. hack. As @Kat_Missouri reminds us, Snowden had an elaborate part to his "legend" that had him waiting for Obama to "do the right thing" after his election. Snowden held off on his leaks, he said, because he thought the new president might bring Hope and Change. Then he didn't, to this young fugitive's satisfaction.

As @Kat_Missouri points out, TheTrueHOOHAH, as Ed called himself online, only waited a grand total of 4 weeks for Obama to make reforms, and when he didn't, then, she believes, he started copying files to leak. I don't know if this is true, but I simply mention that here. BTW, even if people behave badly, if they've put up interesting research, I will give credit where it is due.

"Clapper Lied"

But now, in the ARD interview, Snowden dropped that hoo-hah (you know, etymologically, that American slang word grew out of the Russian/Slavic word "khui" which means "prick" -- actually, it's probably a Tatar word). Now Snowden says that his turning point was "when Clapper lied, directly under oath to Congress."

Oh, nonsense. Clapper didn't lie. Wyden goaded him, and he made a statement as truthful as he knew in the circumstances, and in fact the essence of it was this: no, the government doesn't keep separate, full dossiers on people. It only keeps them on lawful suspects. In fact, in recent days, we've heard that the NSA program only gets 30% of all phone calls metadata -- which is not content in any event. So much for Ed's claims...

And here's an interesting thing that really everyone should be reporting, and throwing back in Snowden's face and Greenwald and co's face.

"There's no saving an intelligence community that believes it can lie." There is "no going back," he says.

Now that's disconcerting. Before, Ed made it seem like he was for reform. That he was gleeful over the formation of Obama's crony commission, and that while not perfect, it was moving in the direction Snowden approved (yes, I realize it's loathsome to describe this petulant man-child as approving or disapproving matters of state, but there it is, that's what it has come to.)

But wait. Now he says there's no hope for the IC. It can't change. There's no "going back." Therefore it must be...what...removed? Blown up? Maybe it's the NSA that needs some extra police protection now, not Snowden. I found that very awful. It means that his fig leaf of "reform" is really slipping, and we're seeing more what this is about: blackmail and coercion.

Snowden then lies that the American people are "prohibited from knowing and discussing" the NSA program and the FISA court cases. He calls FISA "a rubber stamp." But you know, a secret court regarding sensitive terrorist and criminal cases has to be kept secret. And so far we've seen that if a lawyer disagrees, he can challenge that, and maybe it will stick, but ultimately, I don't hear Snowden's plan for chasing the bad guys.

He's also once again performed this sleight of hand, making it seem like things that in fact were never found unlawful or illegitimate by Congress or the courts are suspect -- just because he, a wanted felon, says so. It's perversion.

Now Snowden switches to more of his familiar megalomania territory. Once again, we are seated with Ed at his desk at the NSA as he bugs the president.

"You realize the power you have," he says. "You can wiretap the president of the US" "You can wiretap a federal judge" and "No one will ever know."

Really, guys? Some dude in the Hawaii station can click through some menus and tap Obama's Blackberry? Truly? I'm finding that hard to believe.

Then Ed says, "The only way NSA discovers abuses is from self-reporting." Again, I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that. At all. There are systems that show files were tampered with -- and hey, that's why Ed went on the lam, and why he seemed to have speeded up his leaks and his outing.

Edward Snowden's Big Lie

The German probes some more on the "five eyes" programs where he thinks he has discovered this wonderful flaw in the system whereby the countries barred from spying on their own citizens can just get the other guy to do the spying. Except, there are checks and bars, and it's not just "anybody," but again -- legitimate suspects.

And here's where Snowden pronounces his Big Lie: "the surveillance and abuse doesn't occur when people look at the data, it occurs when they gather the data."

That is what we must challenge at root. Because it's not true. Abuse doesn't occur from gathering -- especially when human eyes don't see (you know, like Ed's own human eyes couldn't see every page in his 1.7 million files? You know, like that.) Abuse comes IF there is an innocent person's privacy violated wilfully, with human intelligence and will. Ed has never come up with a case like that. So he backdates it with this geeky theory of "capacity=action".

This is where Congress should be fighting back. I fear it won't, because they won't understand how meaning is being perverted here by this geek.

Once again, Snowden falsely declares that the NSA "doesn't answer to the laws of its own country" -- although this has not been found substantively by any body. Snowden defines spying itself as "collection of data" when discussing 5 eyes -- but it would be more accurate to say that collection of data is done as a mechanical aid to spying.

Snowden makes preposterous claims -- "you can read anyone's email in the world, watch traffic to any website" or gain access to any any laptop through the "one-stop shop for access for the NSA" called XKeyScore, the "the front-end engine that enables them to look at everything they collect." Except it doesn't do that. They don't look at "everything"; they look at the cases they are following.

Snowden implies that all sorts of inherently privacy-busting garbage goes into this program -- individuals are "tagged" merely if they are "interesting" or "have access" to networks the NSA needs to trawl.

He believes this system "builds a fingerprint, network activity unique to you," and "anywhere you go, the NSA can find you"

Snowden Shifts the Burden of Possible Prosecution for Espionage to Journalists

Now pay attention to this section carefully, because this is where Snowden does something...odd.

He tells the ARD man that Germany has access to X Key Score. Naturally, the German asks:

Does the BND deliver data of the Germans to NSA?

The old Snowden would have said "Yes, they collect 'em all, they get everything, be afraid."

The new more cautious, and more lawyered-up, and more...somethinged...Snowden says this:

Whether the BND does this directly or knowingly, the NSA gets German data. Whether it's reported, I can't speak to, because it's classified, and I prefer journalists make distinctions and decision about what is public and what should be published.

"However, it's no secret than every country of the world has the data of their citizens in the NSA." There are millions and millions of data connections, he says, people talking on their cell phones and buying things on line, all of this ends up at the NSA.

"It is reasonable to suspect that the BND may be aware of it in some capacity but whether the BND provides this information I should not say," says Snowden.

Should not.

When was the last time you heard this talkative loud-mouth ever curb himself, and speak of things he "should not" say? When? It just hasn't happened before. He's never self-censored. He's never let you know he was holding back. What's up?

Snowden says he prefers journalists to determine what is in the public interest, whether the NSA filters or ingests or hacks a German router, whether

"What they don't mean is they aren't gathering data, what they mean is that they aren't intentionally searching," he says, reiterating his Big Lie.

"I don't want to pre-empt the editorial decisions of journalists but there's no question that the US is engaged in economic spying."

Really? This truly is a lot of emphasis from Snowden on the role of journalists - as distinct from his own role as source.

Is he trying to imply that really spilling the beans -- deciding to say that Germany provides info to the NSA, or the NSA hacks Germany, is in fact something he won't say, but that journalists have to say?

Is he trying to set up these journalists? Is he trying to plea-bargain? Is he angling for a deal, and implying that he really didn't do the worst -- Jacob Appelbaum did?

Then he reiterates this other hugely misleading claim that the US is "like" China in engaging in industrial espionage - and mentions Siemens. There is "no question" the US is engaged in "economic spying" and can't tell national interest versus national security.

Well, gosh. If Siemens didn't prop up the Soviet Union, and then later collude with regimes like Turkmenistan, maybe the US wouldn't have to spy on it, yanno?

Snowden then approvingly quotes Obama: ""just because we can do something doesn't mean that we should" and them mentions Merkel's phone:

This is a particularly difficult question for me to answer because there's information that *I* very strongly is in the public interest, however as I've said before, I prefer *journalists* to make those decisions.

Yes, he's said this in a general sort of way a few times before -- at the beginning. But now? So specifically? When the story out now just recently is that in fact, this "spying on Merkel's phone" was more about spying on Schroeder, and then continuing by default.

Why is Snowden bending over backwards on Germany, on this question, re: the journalists who have reported on Germany? That's not Greenwald. That's Jacob Appelbaum -- and Holger Stark and other Der Spiegel journalists. He's putting them on the hook now.

He said that journalists would have to weigh the "reputational costs" to outing the officials who made these decisions.

Wow. Really?

"We know Merkel was monitored," Snowden finally tells the ARD journo with a wink. "It's reasonable to assume she's not the only one."

As for "how he did it," here's something I can agree with Snowden on -- the contracting world. It "highlights the danger of privatizing government functions," he intones. I'll say!

In a kind of advertorial against himself, he complains that "private, for-profit companies doing inherently govenrment work like surveillance" are a bad thing and that they have "very little supervision." Indeed!

At one point, the jolly German tries to get Snowden to lighten up, to talk about himself more personally -- to give some sort of personal details. He joshes that surely Snowden was like one of those nerdy kids whose parents told him to get off the computer and go to bed.

Like a robot -- all throughout this interview you feel he is acting, watching himself, smiling on cue, making deep intonations on cue -- now he says mechanically, "Yes, parents telling me to go to bed is consistent with the truth."

The German asks him why he joined the army. Did he have some beliefs?

Snowden said he wanted to join the special forces because they aren't just grunts shooting people, but help local population to resist themselves by training them. Sort of more refined warfare for the smart set.

But then he says he broke my legs -- and that's it, no more story. No explanation of *how*. No explanation of why he didn't remain.

Snowden then admits because he didn't graduate from high school or college, he had a "deep informal education in computers and electronic technology."

What made you join the CIA?" asks the German reporter.

"I can't answer that one," says Snowden.

Again -- awfully odd, eh? He can't answer that? Really? He's NEVER said that before.

When pressed, he says he was "Trying to do everything I could to prosecute the public good"

Well, says the journalist. They're not exactly a human rights activists at the CIA.

"No matter how deeply embedded, no matter how faithful, no matter how strongly they believe in the causes of their government as I did in the Iraq war, people can learn, people can discover the line between appropriate government behaviour and actual wrong," says Snowden in justification.

He deplores "contracting culture" and he believes while the purpose is limiting government employees, in reality, it's keeping the contracting businesses in business. There are millions taken, "and the government didn't even know they were gone," says Snowden. I'd tend to agree. The contracting world produces people like Joshua Foust and Nathan Hamm. They behave terribly to others and don't seem to have any notion of decency. That's because along the way, they are feted and overpaid and underdeployed -- and a lot of other things. The culture is awful.

Snowden then returned to his false claim that he has done no damage.

Here he deliberately obfuscates, and selectively quotes one official who is merely reporting the facts of the moment, not some final word on the case:

The chief of the task force investigating me as recently as December said that their investigation had turned up no evidence of indications at all that I had any outside help or contact or made a deal of any kind.

"I worked along...I don't have any ties to foreign governments," says Snowden.

I don't believe him, really. Certainly not the "worked alone" part -- but maybe the theory of Team Snowden now is to deny and obfuscate and shift and distract?

"Who did I betray?" says Snowden, starting in on his outrageous, self-serving "l'etat, c'est moi" nonsense. "I gave all my information to the American public, to American journalists who are reporting on American issues." This is the "I defected to the American people" nonsense that I wish Jay Carney would sound off on every day.

Jay is often good on the Russians in particular, and he was quite good on Snowden. Remember when he spoke acidly about people who defend human rights from the lounge of the Sheremetyevo Airport? If Obama were sincere about catching Snowden (he's not), he would sound off daily answering all this preposterous propaganda. Then it might sway less people. But the White House is silent. They never rebut Snowden. No one ever does...

"If they see that as treason, they really need to consider who do they think they are working for. The public is supposed to be their boss, not their enemy."

Um, okay. Well, yes, the public is the boss of public officials. You know, like Edward Snowden. And I, for one, say this public official was way out of line and should be returned by the Russians and tried for his offenses.

Interestingly, Snowden speaks a little on the "sovereign Internet" that is of course is Putin's dream, using him.

But "no walled gardens," says Snowden -- the usual geek credo. "Let's not play 'move the data' which won't fix the problem," he says. "Let's secure it internationally against everyone."

This is really only another version of Russian sovereign Internet -- actually a worse thing because in utopian fashion, it implies that "international authorities," i.e. including Russia, China, Iran can "secure everyone's data." Of course they can't.

As the genius explains -- and hey, Google engineers take note! -- moving data isn't the issue, securing it is the issue. Gosh, glad we got that one sorted out.

"These leaks didn't cause harm."

This, is of course, Snowden's recurring refrain, but fortunately we now have Edward Lucas' book and others will appear outlining the damage done to spying capacity and relations with allies.

"The public agrees it served the public interest," claims Snowden. But that's not true. That is not what polls say. Polls say even young people disagree 42-42 about whether to prosecute him. The public interest faction may be just over the majority, like 56%, but so what? The rest don't believe that. It's like the plurality that Obama himself has. But the reality is, half the country didn't vote for him.

Then we hear from Mr. Nuremberg Principles -- "what is lawful is distinct from what is rightful."

He is charged with 3 felonies, as the journalist even reminds him. But Snowden complains these crimes "don't allow me to make my case" and "convince the jury that what I did was to their benefit.

This is the theme that Electronic Frontier Foundation, @emptywheel, ACLU and others have been hammering on for weeks, Snowden claims he can't return and have a fair trial because in the past, under existing jurisprudence, those tried with espionage were unable to use their trials to bring evidence to exonerate themselves as whistleblowers. I'd like a second opinion on this, but I think basically it's a red herring. Snowden just doesn't want to face jail time without the Internet. The one thing we learn from Luke Harding's book about his greatest fear is that he was worried in Hong Kong the Chinese might arrest him and put him in a box without the Internet.

Snowden complains about the Espionage Act of 1918, implying that it's old date of nearly 100 years ago makes it outdated because of new technology and such.

Actually, the Espionage Act put in place after the Russian Revolution to deter Bolshevik espionage intrigues would be exactly timely today because what we're dealing with in the hackers movement is just like Bolshevism, and arguably more pervasive.

"It was for selling documents in secret to foreign governments," Snowden says about the 1918 Act -- "not people serving public good."

Except, it hasn't been proven satisfactorally that Snowden *has* served the public good. That is not demonstrable, and the evidence of his harm is mounting.